


faith, trust, and...

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Gen, Major Character Injury, louis is a pixie, nick and harry are human, the faeries are based off holly black's faeries, urban fantasy au, zayn is also a faery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 19:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2662826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry needs a favor from Nick. Namely housing his best friend, Louis, who just so happens to have green skin and glittery wings. Naturally, chaos ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	faith, trust, and...

**Author's Note:**

> big thanks to fezpo for beta-ing!   
> i suppose everyone's american? i don't know. just go with it.

The thing about Harry, Nick thought while stuffing his feet into shoes at three in the morning, was that he had a strange (read: backwards) way of rating and reacting to emergencies.

For example: the day Harry lost his favorite pair of jeans, he would not stop texting Nick about it, bemoaning his entire life for this one occurrence, and was actually very close to tears until Nick came over and checked Harry’s washing machine. Turned out he’d been trying to do laundry the night before, very drunk, and simply forgot in the morning.

But when Harry dropped a knife on his foot and figured the wound required stitches, he considered it “ _barely anything, really_ ,” and only asked Nick to come by if he had the time. It wasn’t even that he didn’t know it was serious; he just didn’t think it deserved the same panic as a misplaced pair of jeans.

So when Nick got the simple “ _heyy can you come by when you wake up? slight problem_ ” that woke him, he figured he had to get moving before something like Harry’s house burning down became the issue at hand. If it wasn’t already.

Not allowing himself to dwell any longer, Nick went on his way to Harry’s. He maybe sped a little, but it was nearing four and no one else was on the road. And he was rather fond of Harry, despite the inconvenient timing of his emergencies, and wanted to keep him around if he could help it.

He texted Harry to let him know he was there before getting out of his car. The front door opened when he reached the first stair, and Harry stepped onto the porch with bare feet, arms wrapped around his middle.

“Hi,” he said, unusually chirpy for so early in the morning. Nick looked him over on his way up but couldn’t find any obvious injuries. “I didn’t think you’d come until later.”

“Well, you made me nervous, so here I am,” Nick replied. Harry didn’t move to let him in, instead frowning at him and fiddling with the bottom of his shirt. It did nothing to ease Nick’s worry. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Harry said slowly.

“Then can I come in?”

Harry continued to frown, but he nodded and turned to go back inside first. As Nick followed, he took in every bit of the house he could. Aside from the general messiness that Harry hated, it looked normal; pictures hung on the walls, furniture remained on the floor, and nothing was blackened or on fire. It wasn’t until Harry led him to the kitchen that Nick saw Harry’s emergency.

Perched on the counter by the fridge, a green-skinned boy dressed in Harry’s clothes ate ice cream straight from the carton with a plastic spoon. His feet kicked against the cabinet, and he was humming to himself. When he caught sight of Nick, he looked confused, though Nick couldn’t accurately read the too-bony face and all black eyes.

Nick was also confused, but he found himself leaning more toward alarmed, possibly scared. “What the fuck is _that_?”

“Nick,” Harry said. He was nine years younger than Nick, hardly an adult, and yet he managed to sound like a disappointed dad all the same. Nick could practically see the chastising kitten frown, but he wouldn’t look away from the green boy. “That’s no way to treat a guest.”

“He isn’t _my_ guest,” Nick said. He chanced a glance at Harry, who suddenly looked very uncomfortable. That got Nick’s complete, dread-filled attention. “What.”

“He hasn’t got anywhere to stay,” Harry started.

“Harry, I am not monster-sitting for you,” Nick interrupted.

“He’s not a monster,” Harry said at the same time the green boy sneered and said, “I'm a pixie, you giant arse.”

Nick stared at the boy—pixie—confused by the soft, albeit snarky, voice coming from such a sharp face. He looked at Harry again.

“It speaks.”

“ _He_ ,” Harry stressed, rolling his eyes like Nick was the one being ridiculous in this situation. Nick needed to add “inability to recognize danger” to his mental list of Harry’s flaws. Then he decided he had to add “insanity” to his own if he really believed there was a pixie with a chocolate-smeared mouth sat in Harry’s kitchen.

Moving away from Nick, Harry stood beside the pixie. “His name is Louis, and I need you to let him stay with you.”

“Why would I do that?” Nick demanded. His voice was edging toward shrill now, and that wasn’t a flattering tone on him.

“Because I asked you to,” Harry answered, somehow stern and gentle at the same time. He was pulling his best innocent face too, the bastard. Nick shook his head. The pixie set down his ice cream.

“Look, I don’t want to stay with you either,” he said. He ticked off the next statement on thin, slightly strange fingers. “You smell like iron, for one, and your hair is stupid.”

Nick felt annoyance creep in, accompanied by offense. His hair was not stupid, and what did smelling like iron have to do with anything?

The pixie continued. “But I really have nowhere to go, and Harry said so, so I'm going with you whether you like it or not.”

“I'm gonna go with not,” Nick said. Louis rolled his eyes, or maybe the light just struck him funny; it was hard to tell. Harry gestured for Nick to follow him again, and the pixie went back to his ice cream as they left, shooting Nick a truly frightening glare. Nick only then noticed the wings brushing against the wall behind the pixie. They were transparent with thick black veins, and somehow they produced a shimmering dust that coated the counter and pretty much everything else.

“Be nice,” Harry said as soon as they were in the bathroom. Nick didn’t get why they ended up in the bathroom, but it was Harry, so. He went with it. Harry poked him in the chest hard. “He’s my best friend, okay? So you have to at least try with him. It’s like a friend code or something.”

“Harry, if you start employing the bro code, I'm going to have to abandon you,” Nick replied. Then the rest of what Harry said caught up with him. “ _He_ ’s your best friend? How do you even find a pixie, much less be its best friend?”

“His!” Harry exclaimed, truly losing his patience. “Louis is a person! I met him at a festival, and he comes around every now and then, because we get along. It’s not hard to understand, Nick, now will you take him in or not?”

Groaning, Nick leaned back against the sink and ran a hand over his face. He looked at Harry through his fingers. “What the hell does he even eat, crickets?”

“I'm going to hit you,” Harry said seriously, and yep, his hands were balled into fists. Nick brought his other hand up to his face, partially to hide from the weirdness that he felt his life would soon become and partially because he really didn’t want Harry to hit him in the face. He looked kind of scrawny in his giant shirt, but Nick knew better.

“Sorry, that was stupid.”

“Yes,” Harry said. “It was.”

He was standing with his arms crossed, staring at Nick expectantly. Nick heaved a sigh.

“I suppose you want me to apologize to it—him! I meant him.” It was very sad that he was afraid of a nineteen year old, he thought.  When Harry nodded, he sighed again and let his hands drop to his sides. “Fine. I will go apologize to _him_.”

“Louis,” Harry supplied, beginning to smile.

“Right, Louis,” Nick said, and Harry full-on grinned.

“So you’ll let him stay with you?” he asked. Nick nodded helplessly. Harry’s smile would probably be shown to cure cancer in future years; Nick had as little resistance to it as anyone else. Harry uncrossed his arms to hug Nick tight. “It’ll only be a couple days, I promise. I just have to get Liam to change his mind about the No Fey rule.”

“That’s an actual rule?” Nick questioned. Harry let go of him to give him an _I Know_ sort of look.

“Yeah. He had a bad experience a while back, but that’s not important.”

“It had nothing to do with Louis, did it?”

“Louis’ not a bad person,” Harry hedged and nudged Nick toward the door. “Now go apologize to him and then you can go home and sleep.”

_How can I sleep knowing_ that _is in my house?_ Nick almost asked. Instead he left the bathroom and returned to the kitchen. Louis the pixie was nowhere to be found.

“Um,” Nick said, turning to look through the doorway to the dining room. No sign of a pixie there. It occurred to him to see if there was a dust trail from Louis’ wings ( _wings_ ; he was going absolutely mental), and sure enough, he was able to follow one to the stairs. Louis was sitting at the very top, watching Nick with minimal interest; he had wiped the chocolate off his face.

“So?” Louis said, curling his toes over the edge of the stair. There was something off about his toes, like his fingers, but Nick couldn’t place it. His wings twitched behind him while he mussed with his hair, a shade of emerald just darker than his grassy skin. “Taking pity on me?”

“On Harry, more like,” Nick said. He heard Harry clear his throat from somewhere to his right and just barely contained an eye roll. “I'm sorry for calling you a monster. And ‘it.’ And if you need to stay at my house, you can.”

Louis drew himself up. He blinked his inky eyes and nodded once. “Okay.”

“Yay!” Harry called. Nick reluctantly smiled when his friend barreled through to hug Louis as well, nearly tripping up the steps. His arms went around Louis’ waist, and Louis’ wings twitched up to avoid being crushed. It was a very strange sight. “This is great. My two best friends, living together.”

His eyes actually started to well up right there. Louis held him at arm’s length, looking as uncomfortable as Nick felt.

“Harry, please don’t cry,” he said, almost pleaded. “If you start now you won’t stop.”

Harry sniffed. “It’s just. You two are going to get along great.”

“Uh, right,” Louis said. He glanced at Nick fiercely.

“Absolutely,” Nick agreed. Harry gave them a wobbly smile.

“Good. I'm going to sleep or I'll definitely cry,” he said. He started to head off to his room when he seemed to remember something and turned around again. “Lou, don’t forget your glamour before you leave.”

“Okay, mom,” Louis said, then pressed his lips together. _Interesting_ , Nick noted. Harry hesitated but did go down the hall after a wave to Nick. Louis looked down at him again, mouth a thin line. “You have a car?”

“No, I walked across the city,” Nick deadpanned. Snorting, Louis descended the stairs with an odd grace, despite his wings continuously hitting the railing seemingly of their own accord.

“Clever, Nicholas.” He stopped two steps from the bottom; he and Nick were eye to eye. “If I put on a glamour in front of you, are you going to freak out?”

“I have no idea what that means,” Nick said.

“You are,” Louis said, smirking. In the next second Nick was gaping at Louis’ skin turning from green to golden brown; his face filled out to a more human shape; the black of his eyes retreated to pupils surrounded by pale blue irises; his wings had completely disappeared. Lastly his hair went from emerald to something closer to caramel. He looked like a normal, if not stunning, human being. For some reason that disturbed Nick more.

Always one to save face, Nick put on his best unimpressed expression and said, “Why would that freak me out?”

He took pride in the fact that his voice didn’t waver in the slightest. Louis still stared at him with that dumb smirk, now on thin pink lips.

“Do you have any stuff to haul?” Nick asked. Hopping down the last two steps, Louis passed Nick to go to the front door.

“Nope,” he said, popping the p. “Come on, then; I'd like to be in bed before daylight.”

Despite Louis leading the way outside, he stopped short by the car. The look on his face was close enough to fear that Nick started to take pity on him. Until he spoke.

“Well, open the door for me,” Louis said, watching Nick expectantly. There was still that hint of nerves, but he was covering it well. Nick wondered if that was also magic.

“I'm not your manservant,” Nick replied. Louis’ face took on its previous sharp quality, making his eyes look harsher and darker, and his hands clenched at his sides. Nick observed the distance between him and the car. “You can’t touch it, can you?”

Louis raised an eyebrow, frowning sourly. “No.”

“So, in theory, I could leave you out here.”

“Not if you don’t want a lecture from Harry,” Louis snapped.

Nick opened the door, and Louis slid in carefully.

The car ride changed Louis’ entire demeanor. In the street lights, Nick could see his skin had paled, started turning green again, and he sat ramrod straight, not daring to touch anything that wasn’t the passenger seat. Nick expected him to get out the moment they stopped in his driveway, but he remained still until Nick finally went around and opened his door.

Louis tumbled out, pressing his forehead to the grass by the driveway and breathing deep.

“Are you…okay?” Nick asked. He debated crouching beside him, but he was a little worried Louis might try and snap his neck or something. He didn’t know what pixies were supposed to do to poor unsuspecting men like himself.

“Fucking iron,” Louis groaned. His hands gripped Nick’s lawn, and then he retched. Nick grimaced. He dealt as well with people throwing up as with people crying; that is to say, horribly. Thankfully, Louis pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked up at Nick with a challenge in his watery eyes, like he was daring Nick to show the slightest pity. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“I would say no,” Nick said. “But I don’t think that would keep you out.”

“That’s vampires, idiot.”

Nick reminded himself that Louis was unwell—and also probably had some kind of horrible magic that he really didn’t want to deal with—and kept his mouth shut for once. He unlocked his front door, leaving it open as he walked farther in. The only indication Louis followed was the quiet click of the door being closed.

Nick ended up in the kitchen, staring in his fridge. He wasn’t hungry, really, not with the knowledge at least pixies were real rolling around in his head, but he knew he _should_ eat.

“I'm going to guess you wouldn’t want anything,” he called over his shoulder. When a minute passed and Louis didn’t answer, Nick shut the fridge and went to look for him. “Louis?”

Nick found the pixie curled up on the couch, eyes scrunched shut, knees to his chest. He was breathing too fast to be asleep, but he made no move to respond to Nick.

“Louis,” Nick repeated, louder. Louis groaned, which Nick took as a sign of acknowledgement. “Do you want something?”

Opening one eye, Louis pulled a face. His “glamour” had started to fade further, so his eye was once again black, and his hair was green at the tips.

“That’s a no then,” Nick said, and Louis rolled to press himself against the back of the couch. According to the clock above him, Nick would be late if he didn’t get moving in the next five minutes. “I have to get ready for work, so just. Shout if you need anything, I guess.”

Louis flipped him off. Maybe he was feeling better already. Nick grumbled to himself about how horrible it was to be friends with Harry Styles as he went to take a shower. When he glanced in the mirror, his hair was all over the place, a result of not washing out the product from the day before. It did look kind of stupid.

Clean and dressed with his hair drying into curls, Nick took a detour through the living room on his way out. Louis was in the same position, though he’d gone slack. Nick paused to make sure he was still breathing—he didn’t need a dead pixie on his couch—and found himself sighing in relief when Louis’ chest rose and fell evenly.

Nick stopped again at the front door, retraced his steps, and covered Louis with a blanket. Louis rolled on his stomach, his wings making the blanket pool hallway down his back. Grimacing at the sparkling dust flying around the living room, Nick left for good this time, carefully avoiding the pool of Louis’ vomit. At least it looked like it was going to rain and wash it away.

-

Nick came home to the smoke alarm blaring with Louis nowhere to be found. In the kitchen, there was water on the floor in front of the stove, with his kettle lying on its side in the puddle, and something blackened on the burner. At least he didn’t have to worry about an actual fire. Losing Louis, on the other hand, would not have been great.

“Louis!” he called out, walking around the first floor. He found no sign of Louis, aside from his couch being more glittery than before, but he also hadn’t heard anything from upstairs, which was a relief; he didn’t like the idea of a pixie going through his house. According to the bit of research he did on his phone at work, they were tricksters, and he wasn’t interested in seeing what one would do to his things.

Last Nick checked the back garden, leaning out the back door when he saw neither glamoured nor pixie Louis. Sighing, he started to pull the door shut when part of the grass seemed to move discordant with the gentle swaying around it. Louis sat up and looked at him over his shoulder.

“First of all, why were you trying to set fire to my house?” Nick said. Louis rolled his oil slick eyes, turning back to stare at the fence. “Second of all, you can’t just sit out here like that. I have neighbors, you know.”

“Oh I know,” Louis said. His tone was a little too haughty. Nick frowned.

“And that means what?”

Louis glanced at him again, brows raised. “Nothing you’re ready to hear.”

“That’s dramatic. Do you work on lines like that?”

“I usually don’t waste them on people like you,” Louis said conversationally, though the look he gave Nick was anything but pleasant. “Idiot mortals with nothing better to do than exist.”

Snorting, Nick shook his head. “Is that supposed to bother me? Make me feel less than you? Because it just makes you sound pretentious.”

“I don’t care how you feel,” Louis spat. “That’s how you are. _Less_ than _me_.”

Despite his previous words, Nick felt his skin prickle. Clenching his jaw, he stepped back and shut the door. He took another look at Louis, just sitting in the grass all green and winged and hunched over, and locked it. He didn’t care if it was petty revenge or that he was just going back on his own words. He just wanted something.

It took two hours, during which Nick cleaned up the kitchen and then thoroughly vacuumed the couch, for Louis to try to get inside. Nick heard the jiggling of the knob over his music and then Louis laughing. It was not a good laugh.

“Very funny, Grimshaw,” he yelled. Nick turned up his music, ignoring the chill Louis’ voice sent down his spine. He sounded dangerous for the first time.

When Harry turned up on his doorstep, Nick sort of regretted the act. He definitely regretted it when, after he opened the front door, Harry punched him in the arm.

“What the fuck,” Nick said, rubbing where Harry’s knuckles made contact. His fingers tingled. “I think you hit a nerve.”

“Yeah, I did,” Harry said, marching past Nick to the back door. He opened it, and Louis stepped through the doorway, smirking at Nick’s scowl. Harry also punched him.

“Dude!” Louis exclaimed, recoiling. “Watch your ring.”

“I wore it specifically for you,” Harry said. He looked from Louis to Nick in complete Angry Dad Mode. “Get along.”

And then he smiled and marched back out. Nick stared at the door for a few seconds after. His fingers were still tingling.

“Well that was unpleasant,” he said. Louis slammed the back door.

“That was your fault,” he said. He had his glamour back on when Nick turned to him.

“It definitely wasn’t.”

“You locked me outside!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t call Harry now, did I?”

Louis straightened his shoulders. Nick noticed a mark on his arm, red and raised like a burn, where Harry hit him.

“Whatever,” Louis said before Nick could ask. He started out of the room. “I'm sleeping in your stupid bed.”

“Um, no,” Nick replied instantly, grabbing his arm. “You’re sleeping in my stupid guest room or on my stupid sofa. I don’t need your gross wing dust in my bed.”

Louis looked down at Nick’s hand with pursed lips, and Nick released him, curling his hand at his side.

“Whatever,” Louis repeated and went upstairs. Nick wondered if all pixies acted like brats or if it was just Louis. He figured he didn’t want to find out.

A door slammed upstairs. Following Louis’ path, he saw it was the door to his bedroom. It was locked when he tried to turn the knob.

“That’s very juvenile, Tinkerbelle,” he accused.

“This is such a comfy bed,” Louis said, just loud enough for Nick to make out. “What a shame this duvet has such a huge rip.”

“Louis!” Nick hit the door with an open hand. “Do not ruin my stuff!”

There was a long tearing sound. “Oops!”

The door opened. Louis tossed half Nick’s duvet on Nick’s head; Nick shoved it to the floor. There were little feathers everywhere. Louis’ smile was harsh.

“My bad,” he said before going and locking himself in the guest room.

Nick surveyed the damage in his room. Aside from the torn duvet, all his clothes had been tossed on the floor and there was horrid—for lack of a better term—pixie dust everywhere. He hated fairies.

Louis stayed in the guest room for the entire afternoon, which was how long it took Nick to clean up his bedroom. Throwing out the duvet, he thought how easy it had been for Louis to rip the thing and decided to avoid making him angry for as long as possible. Considering his own temper, Nick figured they would fight again before the day ended.

When Louis emerged, he came down to block Nick’s view of the TV while he was eating dinner. He was wearing different clothes, a hoodie and striped shorts, though Nick had no idea where he might have gotten them.

“I'm going out,” he declared, hands in his pockets. “And I don’t know when I'll be back.”

“Okay,” Nick said slowly. “I'm not your warden; I don’t care what you do.”

“I was being courteous,” Louis said, face falling slightly. Nick didn’t know what to do with that.

“Thanks, then,” he said after a pause, tone unsure. Louis nodded once. Nick waited for him to leave; he didn’t. “Anything else?”

Louis squinted at him, but it didn’t seem malicious in any way. He turned and left without another word.

Nick texted Harry, “ _your friend is weird_.” He got back a string of smiley face emojis.

“ _you are also weird,_ ” he sent and then went back to his dinner.

-

If Nick was going to keep getting woken up at three AM when he had to work, he was going to have to disassociate himself from Harry entirely.  Even though it was Louis, not Harry, that woke him up the second time by banging on the front door. He considered leaving Louis outside, but that didn’t work out so well the last time.

Again cursing Harry Styles and his stupid impossible-to-refuse demeanor, Nick got out of bed and let the pixie inside his house. Louis shoved a flower pot into his hands.

“Uh.”

“Shut up,” Louis said, rubbing his left eye with the heel of his hand. He looked tired. “I had to deal with a troll for that, so just take it and shut up.”

“Alright,” Nick said, looking down at the plant. It pulsed with a gentle white light. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. But it’s supposed to never die, so I figured you can’t ruin it.”

“Thanks,” Nick said. He meant for it to come out sarcastic, but he was a little flattered by Louis’ effort.

“Yeah. Well. Harry said I should be nicer to you, so it’s like an apology. Or whatever. For being a dick.”

Nick glanced up in surprise. “Oh.”

Louis pressed his lips together, but Nick thought he caught the start of a smile. He probably imagined it. “You’re clever in the morning.”

“It’s hardly morning,” Nick said, suppressing a yawn. Louis rolled his eyes.

“Go to bed.”

“ _You_ woke me up.”

“ _You_ locked the door.”

Huffing, Nick walked to the kitchen. He set the pot on the windowsill, turning it so it leaned out over the sink. The light dimmed once he wasn’t holding it. It was certainly the weirdest apology he’d ever received.

Louis was hovering in the doorway when Nick turned to go back upstairs. He hurried to find something to do, grabbing a mug from the cabinet. Nick smiled as he stood on his tiptoes to reach a green one.

“Hey,” Louis said, stopping Nick in the hall. “Do you have oven mitts?”

“Why do you need oven mitts?” Nick asked, looking back at him.

“I can’t touch the kettle,” Louis said unhappily. He gestured at it with a disgusted sort of frown. “Steel.”

Nick was too tired to question him, instead directing him to the drawer with pot holders.

“Anything else?”

“No. Leave me alone,” Louis said, shooting him a glare. Nick lifted his hands in surrender and went back upstairs to try and get as much sleep as possible before he had to get up for work.

-

Nearly a week after Louis’ three a.m. move-in, Nick returned from work to find Louis waiting in the front yard for him.

“Where were you, then?” Nick asked. Louis had disappeared before Nick left the previous morning and hadn’t come back at all that night; or if he had, he’d somehow gotten a copy of Nick’s key and snuck inside, but Nick didn’t think that was the case.

“Out,” Louis said with a shrug. He stood still as Nick approached, blocking his way to the door. “You’re out of food.”

“Unless you ate all of it while I was gone, I don’t think so,” Nick said, trying to dodge around him. Something light but stiff whacked him in the face; he shook his head and glittery powder fell from his hair. Spitting pixie dust, he stared at Louis with wide eyes. “Did you just hit me with your wing?”

Louis’ face scrunched up, and he shifted back. “It was a reflex?”

“Disgusting,” Nick noted. Louis opened his mouth and then shut it a second later. This time he allowed Nick to get to the door, following him inside.

“There’s still no food.”

“Can’t you just magic some up?” Nick asked as he kicked off his shoes, Louis hovering beside him.

“No,” Louis said. His tone suggested Nick was an idiot. “I can make things look like food or taste like food, but it will still be soggy cardboard.”

Nick turned to squint at Louis and was unsurprised to see he’d shed his glamour. It seemed to make him snippy if he kept it up all day, so Nick pushed back his discomfort. “Have you eaten soggy cardboard?”

“No,” Louis said again. He was smiling this time, looking very pleased with himself. “Liam has, though.”

“That’s why he doesn’t want you there, I bet,” Nick said, but he couldn’t help laughing. He’d run into Liam a few times when he hung around at his and Harry’s house, and he honestly seemed like a wet blanket. Someone like Louis must have thrown him for a loop.

Louis shook his head. “He doesn’t know about it.”

“Then what’s his problem with you?”

“Nicholas, this is not the issue at hand,” Louis said, pointing toward the kitchen. “Everything in there will make me throw up or die. I don’t think Harry would be happy with you if you fed me poison.”

Nick sighed for a long time. No, Harry would not be happy with that. Nick didn’t think he’d be all that pleased with himself either; despite being a brat, Louis wasn’t _that_ unpleasant to be around. Just slightly frightening and very annoying most of the time.

“Why can’t you get groceries yourself?” he asked. He maybe let a little bit of a whine seep into his voice. Louis sighed mockingly right back at him.

“I don’t know where anything _is_ , or have the money to pay for it,” he said. “And I will not just make money, before you ask. I have some morals.”

“Good to know,” Nick mumbled. He put his shoes back on. “Let’s go grocery shopping.”

Grocery shopping with Louis was like grocery shopping with a child—not that Nick had ever gone grocery shopping with a child, but he assumed. Especially since Louis climbed into the cart and refused to get out. Nick didn’t like it, mostly because Louis sat backwards in the cart and tended to stare at Nick when the food around him wasn’t interesting, but there was no way he was going to try muscling a pixie out of a shopping cart. The thought alone was ridiculous.

“Maybe you should sit on top of the car instead of inside it,” he suggested as he pushed Louis down an aisle of cereal.

“Wouldn’t help,” Louis said. “Exhaust fumes from the other cars would still make me sick.”

“Aren’t you just impossible,” Nick said. Louis chucked a box of bran flakes at him.

“Watch it, old man,” he said, but it sounded more like a joke than a threat.

Still, Nick had to say, “I'm only 28, thank you very much.”

Louis smiled. Nick chalked it up to the incredibly sweet cereal he put in the cart by his feet. They passed through two more aisles, in which Louis grimaced at everything, before Nick worked up the nerve to ask Louis how old he was. It felt like something he should know since they lived together and all.

“How old do you think I am?” Louis asked after a minute, thoroughly absorbed in his inspection of a pudding cup.

“Well, if I had to go by height, I'd say ten.”

A perfect eye roll from Louis.

“I don’t know; I'm bad at guessing age. I just hope you’re not, like, two hundred posing as a teenager.”

Louis snorted. Apparently the pudding was acceptable, dropped carelessly beside the cereal. “I'm twenty.” He studied Nick. “Disappointed?”

“No, I think I'd be more freaked out if you were really old.”

They continued through the store, Nick stopping when Louis grabbed onto shelves. He ignored the odd looks they were getting while Louis didn’t even seem to notice. They stopped near the fresh bread.

“Then you probably don’t want to meet my friend Zayn,” Louis said with a small smile aimed at his folded legs. It turned into a smirk when he looked up at Nick. “He’s looked nineteen for the past fifty years.”

“You have faery friends?” Nick asked. He didn’t know why that was surprising. After all, he hardly knew a thing about Louis past his first name, and now his age. Then he was surprised how much that bothered him. He used Louis’ response as a distraction from that particular train of thought.

“Well, duh, Nicholas,” he scoffed. “How else would I have learned about glamour and shit? The internet?”

He shook his head at the thought and pressed his lips together when Nick said, “Yeah, now that would be stupid to assume.”

Nick waited until Louis was distracted again, this time by a baby (and Nick wasn’t thinking about how cute the faces Louis made at it were), to ask another question. One day he would stop being frightened by people more than five years younger than him, but today was not that day.

“Why couldn’t you learn from your family?”

Louis’ face fell into fury amazingly fast, making the baby he’d been entertaining burst into tears. Nick flinched when Louis’ gaze landed on him, eyes sparking. As quickly as it came, the anger disappeared. Louis smiled again.

“Do you know why Liam doesn’t like the Folk?”

“Um, no,” Nick replied, thrown by both the sudden change in demeanor and Louis’ use of “the Folk.” He’d never heard faeries called that before. To be fair, he’d never heard much about faeries past Peter Pan, and as Harry had told him, Louis was not like Tinkerbelle. Mostly.

“Zayn enchanted him for a week,” Louis said, way too delighted. Nick felt himself frown, but Louis paid him no mind. They hadn’t moved from the bread aisle. “It was hilarious. Liam did anything Zayn asked and then wondered why—every time. The best was when he woke up on a roof.”

“Zayn asked him to go on a roof?”

“No, of course not. Zayn’s nice to mortals.”

“Then,” Nick said, “why was he on a roof?”

Waving a hand, Louis went on. “The whole thing was an accident anyway. Zayn was trying to impress Niall but then Liam fell for it.”

Nick had no idea who Niall was, and he didn’t quite care enough to ask. He was more worried about Louis’ blatant amusement at Liam’s expense, more than a little of his initial distrust returning. Getting someone to eat soggy cardboard was very different than having total control over them. And he definitely didn’t want to meet Zayn.

Louis distracted him again by pulling the cart forward along the shelves. “This is boring, let’s go.”

Nick swallowed his growing unease and pushed him to the checkout lanes.

-

Nick’s phone was on the third ring by the time he registered it as more than a background noise. By the time he’d gotten out of the shower and mostly dressed, it had gone to voicemail and started ringing again. He tripped over his own feet hurrying to answer in time, cursing as he brought it up to his ear.

“Are you okay?”

“Harry?” Nick said. He checked the clock—it was four in the afternoon, which was usually when Harry worked—and then the caller ID. Maybe Harry had gotten the day off. He hoped there wasn’t another emergency; he didn’t think he could handle something else on top of Louis, who had managed to get mud on the ceiling earlier. “Yeah, I'm fine. Shouldn’t you be inking people up?”

“Yes,” Harry said curtly. “Is Louis around?”

“He has barricaded himself in the living room,” Nick informed him, rolling his eyes. “God knows what he’s doing in there.”

“I'm coming over. See you soon.”

Harry hung up without letting Nick get a word in. Making a face at his phone, Nick set it back on his nightstand and pulled on a shirt that seemed clean enough. There might still have been mud on the ceiling, so there was no use wearing something he really cared about. It was only Harry after all.

Not five minutes later, Harry knocked on his front door. Louis poked his glamoured head out of the living room as Nick walked past.

“Who’s that?” he asked. Nick spared him a glance as he opened the door. Harry didn’t even say hello before he barged in, going straight for Louis while the pixie looked for a way out. He seemed to be contemplating flight, but Harry grabbed onto his arm before he got more than an inch off the ground.

“Stop avoiding me,” Harry said. Louis pulled out of his grasp, glaring first at him and then at Nick. The message was clear.

“I'll just,” Nick said, pointing to the stairs. Louis disappeared into the living room again, Harry shooting an apologetic look Nick’s way. Nick walked away but sat at the top of the stairs to listen. He’d never seen Harry so upset at someone before, and he was still curious about Louis in general.

 

“Are you insane?!” Harry began.

Louis sighed loud enough for Nick to hear it clearly. “Oh calm down, Harold.”

“No, you’re being totally irrational. I’ve almost got Liam on my side, and then—”

“And then what? I get to be unwanted somewhere else? Great, a change of scenery. Just what I need. Again.”

“Louis.” Harry sounded sad.

“What?” Louis snapped. Nick could picture the face that went along with it; mouth pulled down sharply at the corners and eyebrows raised like he was just waiting for the next stupid thing to fall from Harry’s lips.

This time it had to be Harry sighing, quiet. “If you really don’t want to stay with me, I can help you find somewhere else.”

“I have somewhere else,” Louis said. “You just don’t want to accept that.”

“You _don’t_ have somewhere else, Lou! You have this idea of somewhere else, but it’s not for you and you know that.”

“Then where am I supposed to go? Tell me where! I can’t stay with you and Liam; I can’t stay with Nick; I can’t go _home_. Why do you want me to stay here when I could maybe even be _happy_ in the Realm?”

_The Realm?_ Nick looked through the doorway to the part of the living room he could see. Harry was there, back to Nick, with his hands clenched at his sides.

“Because it’s too dangerous, that’s why!” he yelled. It sounded like someone—Louis—shoved the couch across the floor. If the wood was scratched, he and Nick would be having words.

“You don’t know that! Don’t pretend you know anything about this, Harry, because you _don’t_.”

Harry walked further into the room, out of Nick’s view. “I know enough. I’ve heard enough from Zayn. He’s full-blooded and even he has trouble sometimes, so excuse me for being concerned about you.”

There was a long pause before Louis spoke, too low for Nick to understand, and then he stormed out of the house, just barely covering his green skin before he was outside. The door hung open behind him.

Nick waited for a minute, but Harry didn’t leave the living room. Going back down the stairs, Nick walked in to find him on the sofa, which had been moved at least two feet from its original position. Nick sat next to him.

“So,” he said, and Harry looked at him between his fingers. His eyes were definitely welling up.

“I think I fucked up.” Harry laughed once and sat back, folding his arms across his stomach.

Nick watched him cautiously, in case he started crying in earnest. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“You were listening,” Harry said, more self-deprecating than accusatory. Nick put an arm around Harry’s shoulders, earning a small smile that disappeared almost immediately. “Lou’s probably headed to Faery right now, just to spite me.”

“Then anything that happens to him is his own fault,” Nick said.

“I don’t want anything to happen to him. Especially because I put him in the wrong state of mind.” Harry sighed. “You probably have no idea what I'm talking about.”

“Not really,” Nick agreed.

“Louis is a really private person,” Harry started, looking up at Nick with a frown.

Even though he did want to know what was going on, Nick said, “You don’t have to tell me anything if you shouldn’t.”

“I shouldn’t, but if Louis comes back, I want you to know why you have to convince him to stay.”

Nick nodded, and Harry sighed again.

“Obviously you know that Louis has trouble with iron and everything,” he said, and Nick nodded again. “Well, that’s why he can’t really live in the city. It’ll kill him if he stays where it’s all so concentrated, and even if it doesn’t he’ll get really sick. He could try putting on heavier glamours, but that’s not good for him either.”

“There’s nowhere away from the city he can stay?” Nick asked. Harry made a face.

“He used to live really far out in the country, but…that didn’t work out. I can’t say any more about that or I'll really cross a line.”

Nick had formed an idea of what happened, that Louis probably got kicked out, and thought of the look on Louis’ face when Nick asked about his family, suppressing a shudder. “That’s fine.”

“Okay. So. When he came to my house, he was seriously desperate. He didn’t have anyone in the country to help him out, and I was the only human that knew he’s a pixie. I mean, he could have tried staying with my friend Niall, but Niall doesn’t have a permanent place either so that would have been pointless.”

“You’re getting away from the point, Harry,” Nick said. If he let Harry go on, who knew where his story could end.

“Sorry,” Harry said. “So I thought of you, because you’re farther away from everything than I am. And Louis only agreed to it because he was already getting sick, and I had said it would only be when I was working, that he could come over whenever I was home, but then. Liam just doesn’t understand.”

“Louis told me about Zayn enchanting him,” Nick supplied. Harry shot him a surprised look.

“Zayn didn’t enchant him,” he said. “Louis did.”

All Nick could think to say was “Oh.” He was sure the look on his face showed his discomfort. Louis could have messed with him so easily, and he wouldn’t have known.

“It was a joke,” Harry insisted. “Louis has a different sense of humor, but he wasn’t trying to be mean.”

“I don’t think I blame Liam for not understanding.”

“Nick, please. It was stupid, but he swore he would never do it again.”

Harry had his stupid pleading face on.

Nick sighed. “Fine.”

“Okay,” Harry said again. He took a breath. “The thing is Louis feels like a burden. Even if he is, I don’t care. He can’t go to Faery.”

“What is Faery?”

“The realm of the fey. Basically it’s this magical place where any faery can go as long as they haven’t been exiled. But it’s so dangerous for someone like Louis.”

“Someone like Louis?” Nick asked. Harry leaned forward again and put his head back in his hands.

“He’s only half-fey,” he said. “That makes him more vulnerable to all the magic, but he doesn’t believe me.”

“Well, how do you even know?”

“Louis isn’t the only faery I know.”

“Zayn,” Nick said. Harry nodded.

“And others. But I'm closest with Zayn, after Louis.”

“And he told you how dangerous ‘Faery’ would be for Louis?” Nick prompted.

“He told me how the last pixie he knew wound up getting killed less than a day after they went into Faery.” Harry turned to fix Nick with a fierce gaze. “If Louis comes back, you can’t let him go. He doesn’t know enough about the Folk; he’ll get killed or worse.”

Nick didn’t want to know what would be worse than getting killed. He didn’t even like knowing most of what Harry told him. It was too much thinking about a separate world just for faeries.

“It’s not like Louis would listen to me in the first place,” he said. “As far as I can tell, I'm basically a landlord to him.”

“He would listen to you,” Harry said, and he sounded so desperate Nick just agreed. Harry nodded, mostly to himself, and stood. Nick followed his lead. “I should go. Maybe he’ll show up at the house.”

“I'm sure he will,” Nick said. Harry studied his face, clearly close to crying again. He inhaled deeply and then hugged Nick tight.

“You have to tell me if he comes back.”

“I will,” Nick promised. Trying his best for a smile, Harry walked out the still-open front door. Nick waited until he closed the door to go upstairs to the guest room. Louis had stopped him any time he got close to it, coming from wherever he’d been lurking to block him from going in the doorway. He almost expected Louis to appear as he turned the knob, but no pixie barreled down the hall to stop him.

There was a surprising amount of _stuff_ scattered around the room. A few books Nick had never seen before, a mix of Harry’s and completely unfamiliar clothes, some pictures and papers. Nick found what he was looking for in the middle of the bed: Louis’ phone.

It felt wrong picking it up and going through his contacts, but there was no doubt in Nick’s mind that Louis had gone straight to Faery. He just hoped full-blooded faeries had cell phones too.

-

Zayn was nothing like Nick expected. He wasn’t sure what he expected, exactly, but it wasn’t a cow-eyed, tattooed art student that seemed a second away from falling asleep. Accompanying Zayn was almost his exact opposite: a bleach-blond, pale frat boy. The two of them stood on Nick’s front lawn less than ten minutes after Nick had texted Zayn.

“You’re Nick?” Zayn said once Nick walked out. He looked very unimpressed. Or maybe that was just his face. Nick didn’t want to judge.

“I am,” Nick said. The frat boy grinned at him.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “I'm Niall.”

He held out his hand and Nick shook it, but he couldn’t help but watch Zayn. There was just something alien about him, like there was with Louis but more pronounced. His face was just…too perfect.

“What’s this about Louis being in trouble, then?” Zayn asked, studying Nick. Niall also looked at Nick but only to smile again. They were a strange pair.

“I think he’s gone to the Realm or whatever you want to call it,” Nick said. Zayn blinked at him, alert in half a second, and Niall’s smile disappeared. Apparently it was as bad as Harry explained.

“Why?” Zayn demanded. “Did he tell you he was going or are you assuming?”

“I'm assuming,” Nick answered, leaning back a little from Zayn’s growing intensity. Niall slipped a hand into Zayn’s, and the faery calmed. “He and Harry had a pretty bad fight about him going, and then he stormed out.”

Zayn cursed, reaching for something in his jacket. He pulled out a box of cigarettes.

“Shouldn’t those kill you?” Nick asked. Zayn ignored him.

“They’re not real,” Niall said. He paused. “Well, they’re not human cigarettes. A troll makes them so they’re safe.”

“Would that troll happen to grow glowing plants?” Nick wondered. Niall nodded, looking confused. Zayn blew out a plume of sweet-smelling smoke and stared hard at Nick.

“Lou gave you one of those?”

“Yes?” Nick said. The concentration with which Zayn was staring scared him a little bit; he was sure the faery hadn’t blinked in at least a minute. Added to the shapes floating off his cigarette, Nick wanted to be far, far away from him as soon as possible.

Zayn hummed and finally blinked, turning to look at Niall instead. They seemed to have a silent conversation—or maybe they were telepathic. Niall pulled a cell phone out of thin air and said to Nick, “I have to make some calls.”

He walked away as he dialed, tossing another smile over his tense shoulder.

Which left Nick standing in the middle of the yard with Zayn, who continued to observe him with disconcerting interest. He was suddenly very glad the weirdest thing Louis did was scowl suspiciously at anything made of metal; there was no way he could have handled living with somebody who just…stared.

“Shouldn’t someone talk to Harry?” Nick asked, trying to maybe startle Zayn into blinking.

“Not yet,” Zayn mused. Something in his voice suggested he knew much more than he was letting on. Nick didn’t like it.

“When?” he pressed.

“After we’ve found Louis,” Zayn said, calm. The way he was looking at Nick changed, like he finally made a decision. “We includes you.”

Nick waited for the faery to laugh or give any indication he was joking. When he didn’t, Nick couldn’t stop an incredulous scoff.

“No way. I'm not going somewhere dangerous for someone who _does_ have faery blood,” he said. Zayn tilted his head, considering. His cigarette had almost completely burned out when he tossed it into the road.

“You could be very helpful, Nick, but it is your choice to visit the Realm. I won’t force you.”

Nick felt himself staring at Zayn the same way he’d been studied. “Why does everyone seem to think I'd be helpful? All I did was let Louis stay in my house, and that was after Harry guilted me into it.”

Zayn shrugged his slim shoulders, glancing back at Niall, who was still on the phone. “You’ve treated him like a person. You obviously care about him.” He didn’t let Nick protest, smiling as he continued. “That matters. He doesn’t have much these days, but he should know he has you.”

“But Harry,” Nick started. Zayn raised his eyebrows, and Nick felt like shrinking away from that knowing gaze but he didn’t. “He would be a much better example of that, Louis having people. He’s known him longer and I'm sure he’s nicer than I am.”

“Nice only goes so far,” Zayn said. “Nice disappears when tensions rise.”

“So it’s better to have me, who was never nice to begin with.”

“If you want to see it that way.”

Nick was ready to say it seemed like he’d fallen into a horrible teen movie when Niall returned to Zayn’s side looking paler than ever.

“He’s definitely in the Realm,” the blond reported, and Zayn cursed again, though this time he didn’t rummage around for another cigarette. Instead he shifted imperceptibly closer to Niall until they were pressed together. “A couple nymphs saw him crossing through from the park, but they don’t know where he was headed.”

“And no one has seen him since?” Zayn asked. Niall shook his head. Nick’s stomach churned with worry, only intensified by Zayn’s distress. He figured if a who-knows-how-old supernatural being was close to pulling out its hair, he had reason to be equally concerned.

“Are you coming with us?” Niall asked, watching Nick closely. There was no sign of his previously sunny smiles, just a thin line of his mouth.

Nick couldn’t help it; he hesitated. He really didn’t want to be at the mercy of someone like Zayn, who seemed a second away from cracking Nick’s head open to literally pick his brain, and Faery itself was a whole other bucket of shit he didn’t think he could deal with. Then he thought of Louis, getting killed or worse as Harry said, and he heaved a very put-upon sigh.

“I suppose I have no choice,” he said. Zayn might have smiled, but it could just as easily have been a grimace. The faery reached inside his jacket and pulled out two shiny purple stones.

“To keep your eyes clear,” he said as he held one out to Nick. Niall took the second one, slipping it in his jeans pocket without a thought.

“Great,” Nick managed, careful not to touch Zayn as he grabbed the stone. It felt oddly warm in his hand. He would have followed Niall’s lead, but he had less faith in the stone’s ability to work through fabric. Despite his discomfort at what seemed to be a pulse along with the warmth, he kept it in his hand.

“Follow me,” Zayn said, and they all set off down the road. Nick glanced back at his house, just in case it was the last time he’d see it, then felt ridiculous. Of course he would come back. He would have Louis, too. Harry always told him to think positive.

-

When they reached the entrance to Faery at a park he didn’t even know existed, Nick was only positive about one thing: he was in way over his head.

A line of trees bordered the park on three sides. Zayn led them all the way to the back, to a three wrapped in thick vines, the only open space a knot the size of Nick’s fist. Nick had no idea what kind of tree it was, seeing as he frankly did not care about nature, but he knew it was not supposed to be purple.

“Purple? Really?” he said as they approached. Zayn shot him an amused glance but said nothing.

“It’s not really purple,” Niall replied. “The illusions match whatever color your token is.”

“So anything that’s purple is something to do with faeries,” Nick assumed.

“Or any other magic,” Niall confirmed.

Other magic. Nick didn’t want to think about it. He focused on Zayn instead, who was reaching out to press the knot. The vines retreated to reveal a hollowed out trunk; the knot seemed to be floating in midair.

“Let me guess,” Nick said faintly. “It only gets weirder.”

“Yep,” Niall said cheerfully, clapping him on the shoulder before passing Zayn to squeeze through the tree trunk. He disappeared with a quiet pop, the scent of wildflowers gusting back to where Nick stood staring. His mouth was probably hanging open, too, but he couldn’t quite feel his face. It was all a bit much.

“It will be fine,” Zayn assured. For the first time, Nick found his presence comforting. He wondered if that was a bit of magic as well. “If you’d like, I could remove this from your memory later.”

“Uh, I'll have to think on it,” Nick said. “Thanks.”

 Zayn shrugged, as if to say it was no big deal. “After you.”

“After me,” Nick echoed under his breath. “Sure, why not.”

Going through the tree—Nick honestly couldn’t wrap his head around that—felt like being squeezed by an invisible giant hand at five thousand feet. His ears popped, his breath caught, but he exited the other side with what sounded like a sigh from the tree. That was only slightly disturbing.

More disturbing was the sight that awaited him in Faery. Fey of all shapes and sizes lounged around in too-green grass with human attendants. The one thing they had in common was a grotesque beauty. Some of the faeries had curling horns and gossamer wings and skin of all colors—if they had skin. A few particularly horrifying specimens were all bone.

“Nick,” Niall said, drawing his attention away from the faeries. He was smiling again, but it seemed forced. “Just look at me or Zayn, and you’ll be fine.”

As Niall spoke, the tree-sigh sounded again, and Zayn brushed past Nick wordlessly. He continued on, leaving Niall and Nick to trail behind. Nick appreciated Niall staying beside him

“He knows where he’s going, right?” Nick asked. Niall waited a beat too long to answer.

“Of course he does.”

Nick frowned at Zayn’s back. The whole ordeal felt like some kind of carefully orchestrated trap. He only kept following with the reminder that Harry was close to Zayn and Louis’ assurance Zayn was good to mortals. He still looked over his shoulder to make sure the entrance to Faery was still there; through the hollow trunk, Nick could see the park, with grass that seemed almost gray compared to what he walked across. He couldn’t wait to get back to it.

-

They walked forever. At least it felt like forever. Nick couldn’t really judge how the time passed in Faery; not a single shadow had changed in the light. In fact, nothing seemed to change at all. The grass never bent in their footsteps, leaving no trail behind Nick could follow back home.

Though Niall remained at his side, his unease only grew the further they walked. Zayn didn’t look back at them once and maintained his silence. He kept telling himself this wasn’t a mistake, but he never believed himself.

The first time Zayn spoke, it was another curse. He doubled his pace; Nick had to do a weird half-jog to keep up with him. It took another endless silence for Nick to notice the trail of red.

“Is that…?” he trailed off at Niall’s terse nod.

Blood. They were following blood. Probably Louis’.

For a moment Nick was surprised it wasn’t green. Then he saw where the trail ended and dread drowned out the surprise.

Like the tree that allowed them into the strange realm, Louis was wrapped in vines, from the base of his neck to his ankles. Nick could only see one wing, stretched out to the side and bent horribly in the middle. Through gaps in the vines, red, blistery cuts were visible on his arms and part of his side where his shirt—one that looked like it belonged to Harry—had been ripped.

The pixie’s eyes were closed, but at Zayn’s approach they snapped open. He was so pale, Nick noted. His skin looked more like mint than moss green. After he squinted at Zayn, Louis’ black eyes found Nick.

“What are _you_ doing here?” he sneered.

Nick scowled in return. “Just making sure you’re alive, Tinkerbelle.”

“I am, thanks,” Louis said, shifting his glare to Zayn as he cut vines with a knife he pulled out of his waistband. The vines hissed. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Saving your ass,” Niall said. He looked in worse shape than Louis, which Nick didn’t think was possible. Louis rolled his eyes.

“I have everything handled just fine,” he argued, teeth clenched. Zayn sliced through the last vines around Louis’ torso, and the pixie would have toppled forward if not for his legs still attached to…well, Nick couldn’t see that he was being held against anything. As Louis lifted an arm to steady himself against Zayn, he winced so deeply, Nick grimaced with him.

When did he care so much about this pixie?

Niall turned his back on the scene. One glance at him and Nick knew he was trying not to throw up. Probably the blood, Nick thought.

Nick found a random burst of courage and walked up to Louis’ left side while Zayn crouched to continue cutting Louis free. He wished he hadn’t looked at Louis’ back, fully exposed by a tear all along the back of his shirt.

The reason he’d only seen one wing was Louis only had one left; his right shoulder blade was torn and bloody where his wing should have been. Along with that, his left wing was definitely broken. Without the vines trapping it, it still bent forward unnaturally. He had to be in an extraordinary amount of pain.

And he still had the will to be snotty to Nick.

“Hey!” a voice boomed. Nick looked away from Louis to find what he could only describe as an ogre lumbering toward them, and it looked very angry. “That’s mine!”

Zayn abandoned Louis’ restraints to stand. He was vibrating with the force of his anger.

In the blink of an eye a dozen smoky knives buried themselves in the ogre, one going straight into its skull. The creature fell back with a ground-shaking thump.

Nick gaped at the dead ogre. He shifted his incredulous gaze to Zayn, but the faery had already returned to his previous mission. He hadn’t pegged Zayn as violent—creepy, absolutely; but capable of killing something so quickly, without a second of hesitation? Even to save a friend, Nick didn’t think he could do it himself.

“Well now we have to hurry,” Louis snapped, but as he regained his place on the ground he wavered dangerously.

“You just had to go through the park,” Zayn replied, equally unpleasant. He looked at Nick, who flinched, and then back to Niall. His expression softened infinitesimally. “Come on.”

Though Louis took confident steps while Zayn was still near him, he nearly collapsed once the other faery had returned to the lead, this time with Niall at his side. Nick caught him before he could crumple, earning a surprisingly appreciative look.

“I don’t think I can walk all the way back,” the pixie said quietly. Glancing to where Zayn and Niall were quickly disappearing from view, Nick bit back a sigh.

“If you ever tell Harry about this, I will sell you to another ogre,” he vowed. Louis’ face danced between confused and offended before Nick said, “You can ride piggyback.”

The sudden light in Louis’ eyes was alarming, but Nick decided it was better than all the pain that had been there before. He turned and slouched, and Louis managed to clamber onto his back with minimal amounts of pained hissing.

A million derisive comments swirled through Nick’s mind. He said nothing, except to tell Louis to loosen his grip or he’d suffocate. Unsurprisingly, Louis had tightened his arms around Nick’s neck before obliging.

“We’re almost there,” Zayn said, sparing a glance back. His expression tightened when he saw Louis being carried. “Try not to bleed out.”

“Doing my best,” Louis muttered. He rested his chin on Nick’s shoulder. Nick twisted his neck to look at him and what he found was not comforting. His skin had paled further, hardly even green, and his eyes were mostly shut. He blinked heavily, barely managing to lift his eyelids again. “Watch where you’re going, Nicholas.”

Though Nick was sure an army of fey would try to stop them from leaving, they made it through the hollow tree without incident. If he didn’t count Louis passing out as an incident.

Zayn was carrying him bridal style since Nick couldn’t get through the tree with Louis still on his back, and he didn’t seem ready to set him down any time soon.

“Um, shouldn’t he be glamoured or something?” Nick asked as they marched across the park. He wondered when he would stop feeling like his heart was trying to bust out of his chest; he hoped once Louis was okay. If Louis would be okay.

Niall looked at Louis in alarm.

“Zayn,” he said, sharp. Zayn seemed to come out of a daze, following Niall’s pointed gaze. He frowned down at Louis, whose skin turned an even scarier shade of white without the natural green undertones. His features were still too sharp, and Nick could clearly see his remaining wing.

“What’s wrong?” Nick asked.

Zayn shook his head. “I'm drained. I can’t cover him.”

Niall put a hand to Zayn’s chest, stopping their odd procession. His face twisted with concentration as a wave of magic settled over Louis, rippling the air. The glamour wasn’t perfect, but it was better than what Zayn could muster. Nick had a bigger problem on his mind.

“I thought you were human,” he said. Niall met his eyes with an unreadable expression.

“No one ever said that,” he replied. “You can freak out later. Right now we have to _move_.”

By “move” Niall meant catch a cab. Something about the vehicle seemed odd, but Nick didn’t have the time to figure out what. Niall and Zayn, still holding Louis, ducked into the back. Zayn stared at Nick hard, hand on the door handle.

“We have to take him to a troll,” he said like that explained everything, and then he slammed the door shut. The cab sped away faster than what was legal, leaving Nick standing in a place he didn’t know with spots of pixie blood staining his clothes. He couldn’t make himself feel relieved that he was no longer a part of the mix.

-

Harry was on the porch when Nick drove over. It was the middle of the night, and none of the house lights were on. If it weren’t for the headlights, Nick would probably have stumbled over him on his way to the door.

Neither of them said a word as Nick sat beside Harry on the top step. Harry leaned into him, so Nick wrapped an arm around him. The floodgates were released; before Nick could say a word Harry was sobbing into his chest. Nick pulled him closer, resting his chin on Harry’s curly hair as he tried to prevent a few tears himself. It had been a rough day.

They hadn’t heard anything from Zayn, Niall, or Louis since Nick watched them drive away that afternoon. Harry’s initial relief at Louis just being found faded when Nick, foolishly, told him the condition in which the pixie had been found.

Now Harry’s sobs were interspersed with “it’s all my fault” no matter how much Nick told him otherwise.

It was going to be a rough night as well.

-

Nick woke up to someone poking him in the shoulder. He almost expected to see Louis when he opened his eyes, but was instead met with the wide brown eyes of Harry’s housemate, Liam.

“Hey,” Liam said, like waking up people who were essentially strangers was not a foreign task. “Harry told me to get you up.”

Nick harrumphed and reluctantly sat up. There was a twinge in his neck that protested as he stretched. Harry’s couch was too small to sleep on, especially with Harry practically trying to burrow into him. Next time Harry had a breakdown, he told himself, he would drag the guy up the stairs if only to avoid a horrible morning.

“And where is dear Harry?” he asked Liam. The clock on the DVD player said it was close to one in the afternoon.

“Outside,” Liam answered with a grimace. “Zayn came to visit.”

Nick could have laughed if his throat hadn’t closed up at the possibility of bad news. He pushed that thought back and stood. Liam moved out of his way easily.

“You really don’t like faeries, do you?” Nick asked. Liam’s grimace deepened.

“You can’t tell me you do,” he said. Nick frowned and shrugged. Sure, Zayn and everyone in Faery scared the shit out of him, but Louis wasn’t _awful_. Just irritating.

Though that might have changed if Louis messed with him like he did Liam.

“See you later, Liam,” Nick said. Liam wandered up the stairs as Nick stepped out of the house.

Zayn and Harry stood by the road, deep in conversation. If he were to go by the creases in Harry’s face, Nick would have assumed it wasn’t a good visit, but he referred to his mental list of Harry-in-emergency-scenarios. Harry rarely reacted accordingly.

Zayn noticed Nick first, turning that unnerving stare on him. It took Harry a few seconds to realize Zayn was no longer paying attention to him. He smiled when he looked at Nick.

“Morning.”

“Afternoon,” Nick corrected. He kept his eyes on Zayn. “So?”

“He’ll be fine,” Zayn said. Nick could have collapsed under the weight of his relief. “But he’s out of commission for a while, at least until he doesn’t have iron poisoning.”

“Is that why the cuts were like that?” Nick asked, thinking of the way Louis’ skin had been blistered.

 Zayn nodded. “The troll fixed up everything else, but iron in the blood is harder to heal.”

“But everything is okay,” Harry said, full-on grinning. He looked from Nick to Zayn and reached out to tap Nick’s arm gently. “I'm going to shower. Thanks for coming over last night.”

“Sure,” Nick said. The way Zayn’s focus shifted had him on edge again; he thought maybe that was just how Zayn was.

As Harry walked away, Zayn kept watching Nick, pensive.

“Have you given any thought to my offer?” he asked once the front door was shut. Nick raised his eyebrows.

“What offer?”

“To forget,” Zayn said patiently. The conversation, if it could even be called that, came back to Nick in a flash. Zayn could make him forget Faery, make him forget finding Louis. Maybe even flat-out forget Louis.

“No thanks,” Nick said, more confident than he felt.

“You’re sure?” Zayn pressed.

“I'm sure.”

He wasn’t. Part of him was convinced not remembering would be better in the long run, especially as he had an inkling he wouldn’t see Louis again. But the majority of him rejected the idea. How would he have made peace with missing an entire day, much less two weeks?

Zayn nodded again. “Have a good day, Nick.”

“You too,” Nick found himself saying. Zayn smiled at him; in an instant he disappeared. Nick blinked and then sighed. “I hate faeries.”

He thought he heard a laugh, but he chose to ignore it in favor of going inside. He was going back to sleep, in Harry’s bed this time.

-

Nick honestly hated Harry Styles. He was going to hit him the next time they met. And then he was going to run away like a child, because no way was he getting into a fist fight with Harry.

A blissful week of no early-not-really-morning wakeup calls had passed.

And then someone decided to knock on his door at some ungodly hour. He wasn’t sure the exact time, because he refused to put on his glasses for something so annoying, but he knew it was too damn early.

He was expecting Harry to be on the other side of the door, with an emergency like he lost a shoe, but when he swung the door open, it was a much shorter person standing on his stoop.

Nick just stared for a minute, trying to decide if there really was a pixie outside his house. It could have been the dim hall light messing with his eyes.

“Are you going to let me in, or are you just going to stand there like an idiot?” Louis asked. That snapped Nick out of his mini daze, eliciting an annoyed huff.

“Not like I saved your life or anything,” he muttered. He stepped to the side and Louis flashed him a smirk.

“Thank you, Nicholas,” the pixie said as he walked in. He moved stiffly, seeming careful not to turn his shoulders. Nick didn’t blame him. Even with whatever magic a troll had, having a wing ripped off had to hurt like hell.

An uncomfortable silence fell between them. Louis just kept looking at Nick, reminding him of Zayn, and Nick couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“So,” Louis said, eyebrows raised. He still looked human; Nick kept expecting him to turn green or flash his black eyes, but he didn’t. “I left all my stuff here.”

“Oh, yeah,” Nick said quickly. He gestured up the stairs. “Go ahead.”

Louis’ lips pressed together, trying to mask his expression. Still Nick picked up on his nervousness.

“What?” he asked. He blamed the hour for his lack of eloquence. Louis sighed through his nose and mumbled something so quickly Nick couldn’t catch it; he couldn’t even try to read his lips since he was staring resolutely at the floor. “Come again?”

“I said,” Louis stressed, meeting Nick’s eyes with familiar irritation, “would it be okay if I stayed?”

“Seriously?” Nick blurted. Apparently Louis took that to mean no; he frowned but nodded, starting toward the stairs. “Wait.”

Louis froze.

“Why don’t you want to live with Harry?” Nick asked. He didn’t often ask for something so personal, but he wanted to know. If he was going to let Louis stay, he needed to know. “Besides Liam, I mean.”

“Liam isn’t a good enough reason?” Louis quipped, turning around carefully. When Nick didn’t rise to the bait, he sighed. “As much as I love Harry, he’s like the second mother I never asked for.”

“I always think of him as an angry dad, to be honest,” Nick said. Louis laughed, surprised, and then winced. Nick wanted to ask if he was okay, but he didn’t think he’d get an answer. He probably wouldn’t have liked what Louis had to say anyway.

“He worries too much,” Louis said. “Always has to know where I am, who I'm with. And now he’s going to think I'm going to Faery every time I leave.” He lifted his left shoulder in a half shrug. “It’s better here.”

Nick mirrored his shrug. “Okay.”

Louis’ shock froze his face. “Really?”

“Whatever,” Nick said. “Not like I even notice you’re here half the time.”

“That’s because I'm not here half the time,” Louis pointed out, tone unsure despite his growing smile.

“I'm sure I'll get used to you. Eventually.”

And then Louis really surprised Nick. He deserted the stairs and invaded Nick’s personal space, standing on his toes to wrap one arm around Nick’s neck. Nick hesitantly hugged him back, careful to avoid jostling him. He had to admit it felt a little odd.

“Thank you,” Louis said, hardly more than a whisper. Just as suddenly as he’d hugged Nick, he was shoving him back. “Don’t ever call Zayn again. He’s worse than Harry.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Nick agreed.

“So do you have anything to eat?” Louis asked, heading off to the kitchen without waiting for an answer. Nick followed him.

“There’s still some pudding, I think,” he answered. Louis stopped so suddenly, Nick bumped into him, causing a chain of curses and a harsh pinch to Nick’s side. “Sorry! You just stopped!”

“You killed the plant!” Louis exclaimed, pointing at the sad wilted plant on the window sill. He laughed so hard, he doubled over. “It was never supposed to die! And you killed it!”

“Oh shut up,” Nick snapped. He flinched away when Louis reached for his arm to keep his balance. “It isn’t _that_ funny.”

Louis dropped to the floor, clutching his sides as he looked up at Nick, laughing all the while. “It really, really is.”

Scowling, Nick left the kitchen. Louis’ laughter followed him all the way upstairs and into his room, even with the door closed. After a while, just before Nick had to be up to work, the pixie stomped up the stairs. Nick buried his head under his pillow, willing Louis to be quiet. It didn’t work.

The door to the guest room, Louis’ room now, slammed hard enough to shake the walls.

Nick made a huge mistake.

He found himself smiling anyway.


End file.
